March 2025 Roundtable on Powering Up Your Events with Conversational Engagement

The presentation slides are available as an attachment at the end of this article.

Welcome, everyone! We're excited to have you here today. This roundtable is all about events and how to use PropFuel to power them up. We’ve got a full schedule today focused on showcasing what you, our clients, are doing to support your members using PropFuel.

First, we’d love to hear what you're hoping to get out of this roundtable. Feel free to drop your thoughts in the chat or unmute if you're comfortable. We’ve already seen interest in member engagement ideas and promoting smaller, local events. Often clients come to meetings after these roundtables with all kinds of new ideas sparked. That’s exactly what we’re here for—helping you discover what you didn’t know you needed.

We’re your CS team at PropFuel—Brett, Ashley, Meg, Clara, and Bruna. Hopefully, you know who your CSM is. If not, we’re here to help you feel confident using PropFuel and understanding how it can best support your organization. Let’s jump into it.

There’s a full lifecycle to events: registration, pre-event engagement, sponsorship outreach, and post-event follow-up. We’ll touch on all of that today. It starts with maximizing event registration through targeted conversational outreach. This might be similar to other campaigns you've run, like onboarding or renewals, where you're learning what members value. If your event has a leadership track, for instance, that’s something you can highlight using targeted outreach.

Next is boosting engagement before, during, and after the event. You want to keep members involved and identify next steps for future engagement or other event promotions. Events are also a great opportunity to convert non-members. Nurture those leads and grow your membership through follow-up campaigns.

You may have noticed the campaign used to invite you here—it worked! That campaign is available as a blueprint. We use our system just like we recommend you do: ask clear questions, collect responses, and act.

Throughout today, feel free to ask questions, share in the chat, or raise your hand. Speaking of blueprints, we have several: registration, engagement, abstract submission, sponsor acquisition, and post-event satisfaction. These aren’t just for conferences—you can use them for webinars, networking events, monthly meetings, advocacy events, and SIG meetups too.

Now, what are your biggest challenges in driving event registration? Kenny shared a recent example: a local dinner event had a low RSVP completion rate despite decent email opens. Others mentioned last-minute registrations, reaching beyond regular attendees, and low follow-through. These are all common challenges.

Let’s look at a few client examples. First is the American Society for Microbiology. They segmented their audience based on whether they were planning to submit an abstract and asked which scientific track they were interested in. Over 1,000 members indicated interest, and ASM then followed up with questions about what they needed—financial support, guidelines, schedules. Based on responses, they sent targeted support and even enrolled people in additional campaigns. This early segmentation helped both with registration and future planning.

Another example is the American Fence Association. They broke their audience into members and non-members. Members were asked directly if they planned to attend, and non-members were offered the added benefit of joining to get a discount. The campaign resulted in 150 “yes” responses and valuable insight into reasons for not attending. Crucially, they branched “no” responses into follow-up questions to understand and possibly change outcomes—like offering virtual options to those with scheduling conflicts. And yes, this came straight from the registration blueprint.

Someone else shared how they launched a small recurring event. PropFuel helped them fine-tune logistics and interest, and eventually segment future invites to reduce unsubscribes.

Then we asked: What do you wish you knew about attendees before the event? Answers included hotel bookings, food allergies, lunch RSVPs, what attendees are looking forward to, mobile app downloads, and preferred contact information. ICMG ran a campaign asking attendees to confirm badge info—name, title, company—before the event. It fed into their AMS and saved time onsite, while also allowing attendees to customize their badges with preferred names. With 70% engagement and 20% updates, it was a major success.

Another client running a conference in Africa used registration data to trigger follow-ups about required travel documents, hotel bookings, and logistics. Pre-event engagement like this ensures attendees are prepared and improves their experience.

We also highlighted how PropFuel’s website engagement tool can drive event signups. Arizona Society of CPAs used it to pop up a registration prompt for their Spring Mixer directly on their homepage. Visitors could respond and be guided to the right page—simple and effective. Other clients like VPPPA have had similar success, especially in learning how their members engage on the web.

Sponsorship is another key piece. One client built a sponsorship interest campaign early in the year to identify leads and gauge interest. They got 63 companies to say yes and used that insight to plan outreach for the rest of the year. Some organizations have even run campaigns on behalf of sponsors—asking members what services they need and matching them with sponsor offerings.

Now let’s talk post-event. Robin from NPA shared how they followed up with attendees and no-shows after webinars. This gave them data beyond just registration numbers—what attendees got out of the event, why others didn’t show, and actionable feedback. One example: someone suggested using slides during presentations. Now that team always includes slides. Feedback also revealed IT or email access issues that they could now fix.

Their no-show follow-up uncovered many people intended to watch the recording. Since their goal is live engagement, this prompted internal discussion about whether to offer recordings at all. These insights help improve future events and training for presenters. Their simple 1–5 rating system made participation easy and led to broader organizational improvements. There’s even a post-event satisfaction blueprint based on their campaign.

We then talked about using PropFuel at the event itself. For example, you can create QR codes linked to Web/External campaign URLs to gather live feedback—perfect for session exits or real-time reactions. If your members aren’t comfortable with QR codes, consider setting up kiosks with tablets or laptops where they can respond via a webpage instead.

Wrapping up, PropFuel campaigns can be used for many additional touchpoints: pre-event polling, session preferences, SMS reminders, post-event follow-up, and more. If you're using SMS, you can remind people of upcoming sessions. If someone skips one event, recommend another. You can guide people toward networking events or other opportunities they’d find valuable.

We ended with product updates. Recent improvements include new features for integrations with Salesforce, Rhythm, Fonteva, and Impexium (now "Remembers"). You can now activate entire campaigns with one click instead of setting each branch live separately, limit open-text responses, and benefit from time zone and sync enhancements. Plus, our upcoming global search tool will let you find any question, contact, or campaign in your account more easily.